


The Rope and The Redbud Tree

by chasingredrabbits



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament), Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Hell, Religious Content, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4213011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingredrabbits/pseuds/chasingredrabbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The damned man reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rope and The Redbud Tree

The damned man supposes that he could have worse companions in hell than two Roman men. It’s all so bitter, the final swallow of dirt after a fall. Still, his new friends aren’t terrible.

If only, when he first arrived here (abandoned hope and all), the damned man could speak Latin, and if only he were used to cold. Luckily, since he and his companions are all dead, they don’t suffer from frostbite.

The Devil is quite grumpy. The damned man supposes he’d be grumpy too if he went from the most beautiful creature in the world to a) the most hideous and b) the coldest. Every so often, the Devil grumbles or, during times when the damned man and the Romans compete in certain card games, he’ll drop hints.

After a long while, the damned man and his friends learn how to communicate through body language, then how to speak each others’ languages. After a few centuries, their circle of existence becomes mildly tolerable. At times, as they sit on the clear ice, they will talk about memories—memories of old interests, old sins, old friends.

The damned man thinks the last subject aches the most. Near-forgotten suppers, days of wonder. When he kissed the silver the Romans—not his current friends, the ones he conspired with when he was alive—gave him, it had a metallic, hateful taste, and he soon went to the redbud tree with a rope.

(At times, he questions what happened to the thirty pieces of silver he returned to the priests, just what they bought with the Augustus-engraved coins.)

_The redbud, those flowers. They always bloom so beautifully in the spring._

Over the many years, the damned man and his friends learn different games from visitors—those who go the way of Dante.

In poker, the group uses ice cubes for chips, and the Roman named Cassius cheats. They all play with compulsion—to forget, to fill the stretches of time. Sometimes, the damned man wonders what’s beneath the slick landscape of ice, wonders what would happen if the ice cracked.

_Yes, the redbud tree had been so alive that morning._

With his breath frosting before him, the damned man sets down his cards. A royal flush.


End file.
